


We'll Take This on the Road

by pyrrhical (anoyo)



Series: Author's Favorites [17]
Category: Killjoys (TV)
Genre: During Canon, Gen, Multiple Perspectives, Outsider Perspective, Pre-Canon, Spoilers through Season Three
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-25
Updated: 2018-04-25
Packaged: 2019-04-21 17:49:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14290122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anoyo/pseuds/pyrrhical
Summary: A few outside perspectives on Dutch & Johnny's relationship. (Pre-canon through season three.)





	We'll Take This on the Road

**Author's Note:**

  * For [monanotlisa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/monanotlisa/gifts).



> Dear recipient,
> 
> I hope you enjoy this! I saw your "Dutch and Johnny Show" prompt and had to do it. 
> 
> Beta'd by [Sky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ceruleansky/pseuds/ceruleansky), who makes everything I write better, and for this story, made it make sense. (Some feverbrain might have gone into the making of this story. Any extremely weird scenes are 100% my bad, she tried to fix me.)

You could ask anyone, and they’d tell you: Turin didn’t have any soft spots. Not for everyone. They’d be right, but only mostly. Turin had _moments_ of something like softness, something that leaned a little more toward comfortable amusement.

For all he couldn’t stand Dutch, sometimes he found her amusing. He had a bit of a personal policy that went, as long as you’ve amused me, I care less about you breaking the rules. Dutch broke a lot of rules.

She was also incredibly amusing. 

Some of the credit for that had to go to Jaqobis, who was a bit like an idiot puppy, desperately trying to get some treat that was just out of his reach. On his own, Jaqobis probably wouldn’t have amused Turin. Probably, he would have pissed him off. 

Dutch and Jaqobis together, though. Together they were like some sort of children’s roadshow. They were a little bit slapstick, a little bit moral-of-the-story, and all their own little world.

He would sit with them at his desk, them having made a green mistake, like any new agents might, and reprimand them like anyone else. He’d be an ass, because he’d learned early that being an ass was really the only thing green agents took seriously. 

For Dutch and Jaqobis, the green mistakes weren’t the problem. Instead, they started making the master fuck-ups from day one. That required a completely different level of asshole. One that was decidedly more fun.

After he was done yelling at them and threatening their jobs, as he did, he would smirk as he listened to them walk down the hall, muttering furiously at one another.

“If you’d just _stayed there_ like I said--”

“--and let you explode? You were so close to blowing that conductor, Dutch, I mean, so close--”

“--then we wouldn’t be in this mess! Plus, the most I might have lost was a finger, Johnny, really--”

“--just a finger, Dutch, really? Then maybe I’ll let you lose a finger next time! And while we’re at it, a toe, or maybe your bitch bone!”

“Hey! My bitch bone is perfect just where it is.”

“Attached to your Crazy Ass Decisions bone?”

“You agreed not to mention my Crazy Ass Decisions bone if I didn’t mention yours--”

Once he couldn’t hear them anymore, Turin would pull up their file and tap in a handwritten note that they’d been properly remonstrated, after which he’d pull up his personal files. He’d flip to “The Two Idiots,” and add another note, “Discovered new bones to the human body. Possibly only possessed by Idiots.”

It was the little things.

 

The first time Pree met Dutch and Johnny Jaqobis, they’d barely met one another. 

He’d have sworn they were siblings, or just an only married couple. They bickered, and teased, and generally made him feel like he’d stepped into some private party he wasn’t meant to be listening to.

They didn’t seem to be _trying_ to build their own language, as they included him as readily as he felt like joining their conversation, but they would eventually degenerate into laughter and insults and things Pree couldn’t have followed.

Johnny would smile brightly and make some sort of grand statement -- “Here’s to us!” -- and Dutch would immediately agree and then disagree as hard as she could.

“Yes, to us, and all of the continued insane crap we pull, and also to not getting shot again any time soon!”

“ _You_ shot me, damn, woman, you can control that all on your own.”

“You’d think that, wouldn’t you? But -- no, actually.”

Pree would smile and add his own snarky comment, making both of them laugh, but they turned back to each other soon after. They were a microcosm, floating around in the greater universe.

Really, it made being brought into their universe, if only on the peripheral, something close to the greatest prize he’d ever won.

 

Little rumors were making their own way around Old Town, and Alvis found himself hearing about Dutch and Jaqobis well before he ever met them. They were efficient, they were ruthless, they were kind, they were idiots -- it didn’t all fit, but he kept hearing more and more.

Eventually, he had to find out for himself. What wound up surprising him the most was that they had heard of him, too, and not just as a Scarback. That wasn’t something Alvis ever tried to let happen.

“Dutch, right?” he’d asked, the first time he’d ever walked up to her.

Dutch had given him a long glance, then cracked a smile. “And you’re Alvis Akari.”

Alvis had kept the smile on his face and politely held out his hand. His attention on Dutch had been broken, though, when Jaqobis had broken in with, “Nice to meet you, Johnny Jaqobis,” and taken Alvis’ hand. 

There had been a glint of amusement in Dutch’s eye while she kept contact with Alvis, as though she knew he’d been thrown, and possibly even knew he’d been thrown twice. 

When she’d finally broken eye contact, she’d turned to Johnny and said, “Now, Johnny, what have we said about talking to strangers?”

“That you can, I can’t, and Lucy’s vote doesn’t count,” Jaqobis had replied, smiling easily.

“Exactly,” Dutch had replied, before turning her attention back to Alvis. “What can we do for you, Mr. Akari?”

“It’s Alvis,” he’d said, smiling back at them. “I simply wanted to introduce myself.”

“Well,” Dutch had said, crossing her arms, “I suppose I’ll see you again when you want to introduce more than just yourself.”

Alvis couldn’t even find it in him to be impressed, watching the two killjoys walking away. Something told him that was just Dutch, and impressed ought to find another bar to reach.

 

It took about five minutes aboard Lucy for D’avin to arrive at and subsequently dismiss three theories about Dutch and Johnny.

His first was that Johnny worked for Dutch. She seemed to have the lion’s share of the say, and D’avin had never known Johnny to just happily ride along with anyone but D’avin himself. That theory was shot to crap as soon as Johnny spoke over Dutch once he’d finally disagreed with her. D’avin had watched Dutch frown, then cave.

That led to his second impression: they were sleeping together. Dutch’s strong personality felt just this side of “too much” for his little brother, so the idea that she was humoring him made a lot of sense.

He dropped that after a couple more minutes of Dutch and Johnny arguing, more like siblings than like a pair of people who might have to figure out who’s going to be sleeping on the couch tonight. Neither of them seemed particularly troubled by their argument, at least not beyond getting to the bottom of who was right.

D’avin let go of that theory almost immediately after he thought it: they didn’t really seem like they were arguing over who was right. Something in the words they used and the gestures they made said that “right” wasn’t what they were arguing. 

They agreed on “right.” What they didn’t agree on was the risks that were associated with “right,” and whether those risks were acceptable for the other person.

Once they’d finished arguing and a plan had been set, D’avin was able to admit that none of his theories were correct because he didn’t know Dutch, and he really didn’t recognize his brother any better.

 

Before getting to work with Dutch and D’avin, Johnny Jaqobis had been something of a figurehead in Zeph’s mind. He wasn’t a real person, but he was an idea that had left a shadow and a residue over both Lucy and the team.

Zeph wasn’t Johnny, and she got over kicking herself about it pretty quickly. There was, after all, no logical comparison to be made with the incorporeal.

She could understand Dutch and D’avin’s methods, and the ways they thought, even if they weren’t always particularly logical about it. Honestly, it took her less time to adjust to them than she’d thought it would.

When Johnny came back, she was both excited and disappointed. She was excited to turn Johnny from an idea into a person, and disappointed that it was likely she was about to be kicked off the team.

As it happened, she was wrong on both counts. 

Learning Johnny as a person wasn’t nearly as exciting as she’d hoped it would be. Who was it who’d said to be wary of meeting your idols, as flesh and blood could never hold up to marble and gold? Johnny wasn’t as logical as she was, he didn’t know as much as she did, and while he was attractive, he wasn’t nearly the perfect specimen Zeph had made him out to be.

She was surprised when Dutch and D’avin seemed to be of the same opinion she was: this Johnny wasn’t a real Johnny, and Zeph was sticking around. Logically she knew they were all wrong, since unless he’d been cloned, this Johnny was definitely a real Johnny, but sometimes logic wasn’t the way to go. If Dutch and D’avin were involved, anyway.

Zeph had gotten used to the team dynamic without Johnny around. Dutch and D’avin trusted one another, worked well together, and Zeph was there for support. Johnny, it turned out, was the ultimate wrench in that machine.

Where Zeph had learned to just back up and do what Dutch and D’avin asked, without too much strain on helping them be less idiotic, Johnny just pressed on through with his judgment and scrutiny. He did it to Zeph, too, almost as much as he did to the others. It pissed her off, until it didn’t. She didn’t appreciate the action, but she could appreciate when Johnny was right.

Johnny was right a lot. He also threw off Dutch and D’avin from their usual paths of least resistance, just by throwing in a few words. He forced them into different habits, and different ways of planning.

It took Zeph longer than she’d ever admit to realize that Johnny wasn’t actually throwing anything off. Instead, he was taking what had been a derailed train and putting it back on its tracks. As she watched Dutch split her agreement more evenly between D’avin and Johnny. It was awkward and strained, but it got better.

It got so much better, actually, that she stopped being able to understand what Dutch and Johnny were talking about. When she looked to D’avin for clarification, he just gave her ridiculous expressions of unknowing and shrugged.

When Zeph finally asked, wondering aloud, “What’s going on with them? I can’t tell if they’re agreeing or trying to drive each other crazy,” D’avin only smiled, then said, 

“Welcome to the Dutch and Johnny Show, apparently returning to its regularly scheduled airtime.”


End file.
